Ethno Post #5

Foucault’s account of disciplinary societies is characterised by “organizations of vast spaces of enclosure”. He has identified that these “disciplinary societies” are transiting into “societies of control” which has more diffused and mobile forms of control. I think this same progression from spaces of enclosure to diffused boundaries can also be seen from the evolution of the conceptualization of play. Huizinga’s original idea about play as a “magic circle” which is a separate and independent sphere of human activity matches the idea of “spaces of enclosure” of disciplinary societies. The ludification of today’s life means that boundaries are blurred between real world and game. Play is no longer restricted to the “magic circle”; play can occur within the context of real life e.g. Foursquare whereby players can be crowned “mayors” by checking into a location more than anyone else.

I feel that this chapter ties in extremely well with what we’ve learnt from previous chapters, especially Chapter 2 on play material. The networked bio-control society is analogous to the game world whereby all information is accessible to the designer/program which will make appropriate adjustments to the state of the game world based on the player’s actions.

If Daikoku City were a game, it would be a sandbox game. The glasses and the augmented reality platform provide the resources for the players to play with and the players set their own player objectives and create ad-hoc games such as hacker showdowns. Nonetheless, there are certain fundamental rules in this game. Glitches in the form of “obsolete spaces” and “illegals” are not tolerated and there are anti-virus systems in place in the form of “Saatchi enforcers” which will hunt down and eliminate or reformat the glitches. Nonetheless, “Saatchi enforcers” too has their glitches – they are unable to enter shrines and schools. And this glitch is exploited extensively by the children to protect their virtual pets.

The Megamass’ glasses are the key apparatus within Daikoku City which facilitates many unique actions and behaviours. For Agamben, “that which results from […] the relentless fight between living beings and apparatuses” (i.e. subject) is overdetermined by the apparatus and this leads to a constellation of human behaviour that is shallow “desubjectivity”. There are instances in which his argument is supported such as when the kids are so reliant on the glasses that they become unmotivated to do anything without their glasses or when children get into accident due to mistakes in the overlaying of digital data. Nonetheless, I find it an unfair comments because humans have the ability to choose to not use the apparatus (this choice was exercised by the parents when they took the children’s glasses) whereas the apparatus does not have the agency to choose not to be used.

The augmented reality of the Daikoku City offers an abundance of digital play material which can be modified or transformed, borrowed, customized or hacked. The use of “Kuro Bug Spray” is one instance of ludic mutation whereby the digital material of Daikoku City is hacked and deconstructed in order for the children to gain access to the “obsolete spaces”. Another example of ludic mutation can be found in the collection and combining of metabugs. Metabugs is a manifestation of software bugs (i.e. glitch) but they can be combined to form something new and beautiful. This creation process is an act of creative remaking. Metatags are not naturally occurring objects and has to be handmade from metabugs. The varied abilities and power of the metatags makes one in awe of the level of sophistication of the act of creative remaking.

Question: What exactly does the “manoeuvrability” refer to? >.< I think it's improvisation but I'm not sure.